Access All Areas May 2021 | Page 28

MAY | CASE STUDY

Leading the field

Set to be the first major festival to take place after 21 June , Stage 4 of the Government ’ s conditional re-opening roadmap , Black Deer is pioneering the journey back to full-capacity live events . Access goes backstage with the team .
Words : Christopher Barrett

In just three years , independent Americana and country music festival Black Deer has grown 300 %, with its capacity having doubled each year since the inaugural edition in 2018 .

After being cancelled in 2020 , the event was rescheduled for 18-20 June this year with a line-up including Van Morrison . Within days of the prime minister ’ s 22 February announcement of the re-opening timeline , the Black Deer team had rescheduled again , for 25-27 June , with plans for a full 20,000-capacity event .
“ The reaction from the industry , suppliers and festival-goers has been absolutely fantastic ; people love the fact we are willing to go forward ,” says event co-founder Gill Tee .
“ Some people think we ’ re a bit crazy , but they want us to be a bit crazy because it feels like by us going ahead we are opening things up and we are giving more people the confidence to do things this year .” Run by Black Deer Live , Black Deer Festival was founded by Tee and Deborah Shilling in 2018 . The event attracted 5,000 people in its first year and 10,000 the following year . It takes place at Eridge Park , Kent , which is owned by Christopher Nevill the Marquess of Abergavenny . The estate has a licence to accommodate 30,000 people . Shilling says Black Deer ’ s expanding community of attendees has proven extremely loyal despite two consecutive postponements : “ After the first one we had an 89 % ticket retention rate . We were concerned there might be a large number of refund requests when we opened up the process again because our attendees had been through a full year of the pandemic . Thankfully , we had fewer than 10 % request refunds and ticket sales have been really strong – we ’ ve already surpassed 2019 .”
Uncertainty There have been some major festival casualties already this year , and much industry frustration around the Government ’ s unwillingness to help underwrite an events cancellation insurance scheme . There also remains uncertainty around the results of the Events Research Programme , but Black Deer Live MD Chris Russell-Fish says every eventuality has been considered .
Russell-Fish has been the event ’ s operations director since its launch in 2018 , and its MD since September last year . He says the team has been monitoring the ever-evolving situation around Covid-19 and is wellprepared for any changes to event guidance from Public Health England and the DCMS .
“ We are fortunate that we are on the Eridge Estate with some 3,500 acres , and being a relatively small festival , our onsite build is just a few weeks in length , allowing us to react very quickly to any last-minute demands , to ensure the safety of all our attendees , crew , merchants and suppliers ,” he says .
Having introduced RFID cashless technology in 2019 across the whole site in partnership with PlayPass ,
Gill Tee and Deborah Shilling
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